Staff Sgt. Kristen Chandler, who served in Afghanistan, gets surprise welcome home to Kingston (with video)

Army Staff Sgt. Kristen Chandler is joined at the surprise party by her father, Stan Chandler, left, and Bill Tubby of the Joyce- Schirick VFW Post 1386 Color Guard. (Freeman photo by Ann Gibbons)

KINGSTON, N.Y. -- Facebook usually is a mistaken place to keep a secret, but for Stan Chandler, the social media network enabled him to host a surprise welcome home Sunday for his daughter, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Kristen Chandler, who was returning from a one-year tour of duty in Afghanistan.

Asked how he kept the surprise from his daughter, home on leave for a few weeks, the Army veteran smiled and said, "Facebook. I set it all up on Facebook, but kept the information from hers."

The welcome home party was held at the Joyce-Schirick Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1386 and brought together members of all branches of the service to honor her return.

Uniformed VFW members lined up inside the hall, flags at the ready, to await Chandler's entrance. As word spread of her arrival, the crowded and noisy hall got so quiet a dropped pin could have been heard. Even the little ones were still.

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As "Present colors!" rang out, the surprised staff sergeant walked into a flag-lined entry to the hall, but, as befits an officer, she maintained her poise.

"I was surprised," a happy and relaxed Chandler admitted later. "I don't know how my father kept this a secret."

Chandler, a former music teacher in the Kingston school district, said she enlisted in the Army in 2004 as a means to further her education. She had obtained a bachelor of arts degree in music and a bachelor of science degree in education from Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania.

However, she auditioned with the Army in advance of enlisting, to qualify as a bandsman.

"Music is my life," Chandler said. "If I were going to serve, I wanted it to be in service to music, too."

Currently stationed at Fort Stewart, Ga., Chandler spent the last year with her band, Control Detonation, touring U.S. bases across Afghanistan. Piano and trumpet are her instruments.

"We play all kinds of popular music, some rock, some jazz, to guys who maybe haven't heard any American music for a long time," Chandler said. She said many of the bases she visited were in isolated areas of Afghanistan, so the band was warmly greeted by soldiers.

"It was so rewarding to hear soldiers tell us they forgot for a while they were in Afghanistan when they heard us play," Chandler said. "We brought them a little piece of home."